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Friday, October 10, 2008

Design "firsts"

For years I've been making a polymer clay "bashful" santa ornament. I think the first time I made him was in 1985 or 86.

I was doing a craft show and a friend told me about a tee shirt she saw with a naked santa holding his hat over his "package". She had seen this shirt at another show and kind of scribbled the design down for me to look at.

I loved this idea and at the next craft show I had several bashful santa ornaments ready to sell.

This was not my original idea, but I had never seen anyone do them in clay. For awhile, I was the only one that I knew of who was making them in the Detroit area. Then slowly, I began to see them in other clay artist's booths. Did they copy from me? Did the tee shirt guy copy from them, and I from him? I don't know.

By the 1990s I started to see them at Claires, the jewelry store. They were little earrings made in China. I wondered where they got the idea from.

When I joined ebay in 2001, I started to sell the naked santa in my auctions. It was a good seller and naked santa had a good run.

One day I was in a forum and noticed someone was upset about her naked santa design being copied on ebay. I began to read the thread and found out that I was the offender! The irritated ebayer ranted on and on about me. I posted a reply, explaining that I had been making the naked santa for years and that I didn't even come up with the idea. She finally calmed down and even to this day, we periodically send each other emails. She lives only a few miles from me, maybe she saw my naked santa at a show and was inspired. I'll never know.

Over the years I've seen lots of different versions of this naughty santa.